Net Promoter is Top of Mind with CMOs

I am just returning from the Red Herring CMO conference in San Diego and thought I’d share some of the stories I brought back.

The highlight of the conference for me was the presentation by Lenovo CMO, Deepak Advani.  Deepak encapsulates the true CMO.  He is clearly a business leader who sees his role as driving growth.  He talked about the measures of awareness, consideration and preference and illustrated how customer experience is critical to building brand preference.  Once someone engages with your brand, it is their experience that will define their preference and that will translate to word of mouth.

He went on to discuss Lenovo’s various marketing strategies throughout the world and how he sees the traditional measures of awareness irrelevant if image does not trend in the same direction.  This struck a chord with me, as I feel strongly that the CMO must be the sheppard of customer experience. You can’t advertise your way out of poor product quality or service experience.  Online word of mouth through blogs, social networks, forum, etc. will expose your organization.  Monitoring customer experience in every way possible allows an organization to fulfill the brand promise and continuously improve your business processes to deliver to customer expectations.

It was no surprise when I spoke with Deepak after his talk that he is a believer in Net Promoter.  He said, that after reading “the Ultimate Question”, he is a believer in the power of Net Promoter and a key performance indicator (KPI) and bought copies for the CEO and entire executive team. After listening to Deepak, I may actually become a Lenovo user.  Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m an Apple Promoter (currently typing on my MacBook Pro).  But, seeing the brand essence Lenovo is creating, the innovation they are driving in their category and knowing their focus on customer experience has peaked my interest in their products.

Net Promoter remains top of mind of most marketing executives.  In every marketing event I have attended in the past six months, I hear the praises of Net Promoter in keynote talks from major brands in both BtoB and BtoC businesses.   Marketers understand that Net Promoter gives them a measure that matters to the brand.  What is the “Net” of my word of mouth?  How am I building brand preference that will drive growth?

It’s a 2.0 world.  While we have all heard of Web 2.0, I heard a talk on Marketing 2.0 and  was on a panel discussion of Customers 2.0.   The power of connectivity is driving change in all aspects of the business.  In the Web 1.0 world we saw companies transform their business, leveraging their Internet connectivity to deliver operational excellence, global reach and cost reduction.  In the Web 2.0 world we are seeing organizations transform their business around the customer, understanding that the power of communication enabled by Web 2.0 environments creates a powerful environment for Word of Mouth and customer listening.

It’s an exciting time with tremendous opportunity.  Organizations that truly embrace the 2.0 world will have competitive advantage.